In the field of water conservation, both municipally imposed cost increases and water restrictions cause the user to be more careful about water use. Nevertheless, the results of such steps aimed at conservation remain quite unimpressive because, generally, users do not pay a lot of attention to conserving water use, any modification of habits being rather slow to take effect, or users are not directly concerned by the costs. Furthermore, it should be noted that, in regular use, people generally consume more water than what is really needed for most tasks.
To encourage or induce such water conservation, two solutions have already been proposed:
a stop-valve or a narrowing inside of the liquid pipes but such limit is a permanent one and thus it is impossible to obtain a larger flow when needed; PA1 for a single handle faucet, removable stop means such as described in the commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,082,023 but, because such means must be incorporated in the faucets during the manufacturing process, its application is restricted to new faucets only and thus it cannot be retro-fitted or added to already installed faucets, while no solution is brought to all other types of faucets.